Professor Treasure said designers expected the public to change to fit the shape of their clothes, rather than changing their designs to suit healthier bodies.

She believes designers are influencing fashion retailers like Asda, owned by the US giant Wal-Mart, to produce clothes in smaller sizes.

She said: “From the timing of Asda’s announcement it seems like they have seen a market forming. They obviously don’t want to miss out on an opportunity for free advertising, even at the cost of public health.”

The supermarket chain will stock size-zero clothes – the equivalent of British size 4 – in its new G21 range from fashion label George. It will be the first mainstream collection in the UK to include clothes that go down to a size 4.

The typical waist measurement of the clothes, aimed at the younger end of the market, will be 22 inches – the average size of an eight-year-old girl.

Last week, filmmaker Darryl Roberts launched a boycott against the clothing company Ralph Lauren on the grounds that their advertisements promote negative body images in women and girls. According to the Huffington Post, the boycott has so far generated the support of the National Association of Anorexia Nervousa and Associated Eating Disorders (ANAD), the YWCA and 60 other organizations, as well as a Facebook following of over 3,700: here.

Thousands of schoolgirls as young as 10 are skipping meals and taking up smoking to lose weight thanks to popular media images: here.

A Dutch fashion model and former winner of the TV show “Holland’s Next Top Model” has won a lawsuit against Elite Model Management after she was dropped for having hips that were “too large”.

Ananda Marchildon, now 25, had been promised €75,000 when she won the Holland’s Next Top Model television competition in 2008. But Elite subsequently dismissed her, saying her hips were too big by two centimeters. The court in the Netherlands ruled today that Elite would have to pay her the remaining €65,000.

After the ruling Marchildon told the Daily Beast: “A huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. After almost two years of struggling I was finally proven right.”

She was commissioned for a photo shoot on Wednesday by an underwear company who called Marchildon “a beautiful woman”, adding: “It’s too crazy for words that a model who’s her size would be written off as too fat.”